After an impressively strong opening two episodes, Alex de la Iglesia’s frenzied horror show has settled nicely into the usual pattern for a series that deals with scary, ghostly, fucked up happenings on a weekly basis and its third episode is no different. However, while Iglesia seems to be using this series to scratch every horror itch he’s ever had (last week it was a haunted Ouija board; this week it’s that other reliable horror go-to: the haunted mirror), not only is the Spanish director putting a neat, edgy spin on each of them, he and regular screenwriter Jorge Guerricaechevarria have woven them expertly into the overarching conspiracy theory that’s been building ever since an unkillable guy shot up a bank in Geneva in the first episode.
But, as all good conspiracy shows know, you have to start drip feeding answers to keep your audience following like a Donkey after a carrot and it’s time for 30 Coins to finally cough up some answers – along with its spectral reflective device, of course…
Remember that opening scene in the first episode? You should, I just referenced it in my opening, but I only bring it up as this episode starts in a very similar way as a man wearing a protective charm strides into a New York jewelry store and murders the occupants in order to get his hands on yet another special coin. From here we zip back over to the lowly town of Pedraza where Mayor Paco is officiating a local wedding – of course, it doesn’t take long for something suspicious to occur as the guy delivering the wedding cake ends up crashing into a tree due to the side effects of a mirror that’s located in a flat located above the local pharmacy.
Now worryingly used to jumping into action at the mention of otherworldly shit sitting on their very doorstep, Paco and increasingly determined vet Elena go check this mirror out and find that it is indeed very fucking weird as it not only reflects the room it’s facing, but there’s things in the reflection that aren’t in the freakin’ room. The main offender turns out to be a book in Greek entitled The Gospel Of Judas and its reason enough to bring in increasingly suspicious exiled priest, Padre Manuel Vergara who has been bending over backwards in order to diffuse all the recent occurrences with a web of insistent lies, but even he is at a loss to casually explain away a mirror which shows things that aren’t there.
After finally relenting and telling his companions about the 30 Coins, the power they hold and the order of the Cainites – a cult who believes that evil is necessary to sustain good – Vergara is lured to the mirror by his own reflection with the promise that he can speak to the young man who died under his care during an exorcism years ago, but in his vunerable state, his reflection has him dragged into another dimension, leaving his double to cause mischief in our world.
Once again, 30 Coins delivers another wildly above average episode that treats its weathered tropes with gripping effect and gives us more time with its rapidly endearing central trio, however, once again I’m loathe to award the episode a full, five-star rating just on the pretext that it hasn’t reached the insane extremes of the first episode that hurled unkillable bankrobbers and mutant spider/babies at us with reckless abandon. Still, that doesn’t mean that The Mirror doesn’t bring the goods, and along with another, rousing robbery (the throat slash is fucking spectacular), it plays up the creepiness of mirror-people up to the hilt. However, the most noticable aspect of the episode is that it finally lays out the basics of what’s actually going on behind the scenes and while it’s all stuff we’ve surmised from the previous episodes and the provocative opening credits which makes it obvious that the titular coins were part of Judas’ payment, it’s nice to finally get some actual ground rules.
Yes, the coins were part of Judas’ reward for betraying Jesus, but if items blessed by Christ means that they have special meaning, would the same be said of things that harmed him? Thus we’re schooled on the belief of the Cainites, an order who argues that if Jesus needed to be betrayed in order to be sacrificed, and God sees and knows all, then it was part of the divine’s while plan for the treachery to take place. By that logic, it justifies that doing evil is an absolutely necessary task in order to establish good and to him that end, those within the Vatican who follow the Gospel of Judas hope to obtain all thirty coins in order to grant them power equal to a weaponized Ark of the Covenant.
It’s a set up that feels entirely at home with Iglesia who once gave us a movie that saw a priest commit ever escalating sins in order to keep the devil at bay (Day Of The Beast, if you were wondering, you should check it out) and it all ties in nicely with the episode’s themes about reflection and opposites.
The opening up of the show’s lore means we also get an overdue opening up of the shows most enigmatic character, Eduard Fernandez’s traumatised, secretive, boxing priest who, after finally being met by a conundrum he can’t bullshit his way through, starts filling in Elenor and Paco into what exactly is going on. We already know that his prickly demeanor is born from the death of Giacomo in the botched exorcism, but it turns out that his inability to admit supernatural shenanigans are occuring when they blatantly are is a result in keeping the beef the Cainites beef with him on the down low. It seems that the coin he once owned that now belongs with Elenor is the property of the order have been employing extreme methods (such as a multidimensional mirror and a Vergara double) to get it back.
However, with an evil duplicate, evil religious orders and multiple dimensions all thrown into the mix, I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t pick out the lighter, standout moments that give the show its heart and laughs. A scene where Paco and Eleanor are watching a camera feed of Vergara watching the mirror overnight while texting each other is sweetly funny, its make even more funny when Paco’s wife assumes he’s watching porn and casually announces that if he wanted sex, he needed only to ask. It’s this over kilter sense of humour, plus Elena and Paco’s obvious will-they-won’t-they chemistry that balances out well with the outlandish horror stuff.
Three episodes down, and 30 Coins is setting an impressive pace, especially as the episode ends with Elena casting that pesky coin into a river in an effort to halt the madness. Fingers crossed that Iglesia and Guerricaechevarria can keep it up after an episode that, upon reflection, keeps up the good (or should that be bad) work.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 